Award Winning Landscape Violated Lauderdale Rules

July 26, 1986|By KELLY LEON, Staff Writer

FORT LAUDERDALE -- The owner of the Anacapri Inn, a hotel that won a city landscaping award last fall, this week paid about $5,000 remove 10 black olive trees because they violated city landscaping requirements.

The trees, which only days ago lined the entrance to the hotel, were ordered uprooted because city officials said they had been abused.

``We trimmed them into a rounded shape, and the city said it was tree abuse,`` said Jerry Johnson, owner of the newly-renovated inn at 1901 N. Federal Highway.

Johnson complied, and they were replaced Friday with ten 18-foot queen palm trees.

The hotel was cited Oct. 25, 1985, for violating the city`s landscape ordinance because the trees were sculpted into rounded hedges, according to Bob Schimmel, city landscape inspector.

Schimmel said the National Arborists Association has set a national trimming standard for shade trees that is followed by the city.

Based on those standards, the black olive trees were cut in a way that shortened their lives and increased insect infestation, Schimmel said.

``Trees are planted for the purpose of shade and aesthetics, not to create lollipops out of them,`` he said.

Johnson said the trees were planted about 20 years ago by a previous owner.

A few of the black olive trees were replanted behind the hotel, he said. The rest are in the hands of a landscaper.